Cal Performances presents Language of Dreams featuring Myra Melford & Snowy Egret
2016-11-19
Zellerbach Hall Auditorium
U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA
8:00 PM, Saturday, November 19, 2016

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[8:06 PM lights down, announcements from Rob Bailis; Andrew Gilbert presents Myra with the Jazz Journalists Association award for Midsize Ensemble of the Year; band out]

1. [8:10 PM] Prelude
2. [8:20 PM] the Promised Land
3. [8:23 PM] Snow
4. [8:26 PM] the Kitchen

1. [8:34 PM] the Virgin of Guadalupe
2. [8:45 PM] A Musical Evening
3. [8:49 PM] For Love of Fruit/Ching Ching

1. [8:56 PM] Language (interlude)

1. [9:02 PM] Times of Sleep and Fate
2. [9:07 PM] Little Pockets/Everybody Pays Taxes
3. [9:13 PM] Market (video/text only)
4. [9:14 PM] the First Protest

1. [9:21 PM] Night of Sorrow
2. [9:31 PM] Day of the Dead (dance/text only)
3. [9:34 PM] the Strawberry

1. [9:40 PM] the Virgin of Guadalupe (reprise)
   [show ends 9:48 PM; applause and bows; 9:51 PM, AG tells everyone to move in close for the talk; dead air for a few minutes]

[9:55 PM: Post-performance Q&A, with Sofia Rei; Oguri; Andrew Gilbert, Myra Melford & David Szlasa]
[RLV wanted to know how/what is different between tonight's work and the 2013 YBCA version, but didn't remember to ask, doh!]
[10:10 PM Q&A session ends]

Myra Melford & Snowy Egret

• Liberty Ellman: acoustic guitar;
• Myra Melford: piano, melodica, sampler;
• Ron Miles: trumpet, cornet;
• Tyshawn Sorey: drums;
• Stomu Takeishi: acoustic bass guitar.
  – with –
• Oguri: dance;
• Sofia Rei: narrator, spoken text;
• David Szlasa: video artist;
• Hans Wendl: artistic direction, production.

Program Notes

Andrew Gilbert has written numerous articles about Lyra over the years; his latest promo piece appeared earlier this week.

And thanks to the multimedia links section on the Cal Performances web page, I found this video from Myra's November 2013 performance of this piece at YBCA. Hey! I was there! Here's what I wrote about experiencing that version of the work.

So what did I think this time? Aww, gee. Well, uh, I'm glad I went, because I like hearing what Myra and her compatriots create. But Ting didn't like the show (too boring), and I agree with her that the pacing was a little on the slow side. Given that the video and narration were delivered as live improvisation, there's the potential for new and exciting things to happen, but in this case, it was kind of like standing in the kitchen, watching a breakfast pan of eggs and hash slowly fry to a perfect brown. The result is yummy, and you can't go too fast (for fear of charring things); patience and attention to the process is the required order of the day.

Does this have all that much to do with Eduardo Galeano's amazing Memory of Fire trilogy? I'd argue that the connection is rather oblique. Myra was inspired by Galeano's texts to create new music. And she shared that inspiration with her bandmates and compatriots and put together a show, Language of Dreams, which has now seen multiple iterations over the past few years. Given that the published setlists for the two shows are identical, it's hard to know how much development the material has undergone. I suppose we need to wait and see whether Myra releases an album of these tunes to really know where she's trying to take this piece.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!